Deeplinks Blog posts about Content Blocking

"Are you being blocked?" asks Open Rights Group's (ORG) newly-revamped website, "Blocked!" The site, which relaunched today, allows users to test whether their websites are being blocked by one of the UK's 10 major Internet service providers (ISPs). Anyone who suspects their website to be a target of the ISPs' filters can detect a block by simply entering the URL of their site into the search bar provided.

The project seeks to address the problems of arbitrary blocking of websites prompted by concerns about child protection, copyright, and other issues. As ORG explains:

Thailand's censorship regime has grown ever more pervasive since the military took over last month, with punishments aimed at both speakers and consumers of prohibited media. On the streets, Thais have been arrested for wearing the wrong message on a T-shirt, or reading George Orwell's "1984" in public. Online, according to the regime's own reports, hundreds of new websites have been added to the Thai government's official blacklist including politics and news sites covering the coup. Now the authorities are deceiving Internet users into disclosing their personal details, including email addresses and Facebook profile information, when they try to visit these prohibited sites.

After a two-week ban on the website imposed by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Turkey's Constitutional Court has ruled that the block breached freedom of expression. Access to Twitter was subsequently restored within the country.

The ban on Twitter drew widespread criticism both within and outside of Turkey. President Abdullah Gul, who hails from the same party as Erdoğan, spoke out against it. The White House issued a statement opposing the restriction, and Twitter itself condemned the choice, posting alternative options for tweeting to their @policy account.

Join EFF on April 4th for 404 Day, a nation-wide day of action to call attention to the long-standing problem of Internet censorship in public libraries and public schools. In collaboration with the MIT Center for Civic Media and the National Coalition Against Censorship, we are hosting a digital teach-in with some of the top researchers and librarians working to analyze and push back against the use of Internet filters on library computers.

For over a decade public libraries and public schools have been censoring the Internet by blocking and blacklisting websites to be in compliance with the Children's Internet Protection Act (CIPA). The law was passed to encourage public libraries and schools to filter child pornography and obscene or “harmful to minors” images from the library’s Internet connection in exchange for federal funding.

Following his pledge to “wipe out” Twitter last week, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan ordered ISPs to block the site, which they did by tweaking DNS settings and redirecting traffic from the page to a government blockpage.